For educational purposes
The remarkable warriors of the Aztec civilisations come under the spotlight in this episode, which tells the story of the Spanish conquest of the south Americas.
Featured is the battle of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, which, despite the capture of the Aztec leader Montezuma, saw the greatest defeat of Spanish forces in nearly fifty years - a victory that would ultimately cost them dear.
The remarkable warriors of the Aztec civilisations come under the spotlight in this episode, which tells the story of the Spanish conquest of the south Americas.
Featured is the battle of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, which, despite the capture of the Aztec leader Montezuma, saw the greatest defeat of Spanish forces in nearly fifty years - a victory that would ultimately cost them dear.
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LearningTranscript
00:00It was one of the most prosperous cities in the world. The waterways which punctuated
00:17the artificial islands were the highways of commerce for an empire. The rulers took tribute
00:23from towns and settlements hundreds of miles away. The knights and noblemen who ruled the
00:29place wore fine clothes, ate exotic foods and walked the cleanest streets in the world.
00:36In 1519, the imperial city of Tenochtitlan was exciting, rich and powerful. But a man
00:43from overseas was coming to change all that. Over the course of two years, a single ruthless
00:51man was able to forge an alliance which destroyed the gorgeous city, rooted out its ancient
00:56religion and created a new realm for his king. The disease his people unwittingly brought
01:03with them would finish the job by massacring the people who remained in the Empire of Mexico.
01:26Moctezuma II, the emperor in Tenochtitlan,
01:56was concerned with signs and portents. His people, the Mexica or Aztecs, had seen a comet
02:03in the sky and in 1518 had heard stories of strange pale bearded men from the coast. The
02:11Mexican religion predicted an apocalyptic time of great trouble and his people wondered whether
02:17the time had come. Tenochtitlan was built on Lake Texcoco, high in the mountains of what is
02:28today Mexico. The city itself was built on an island in the middle of the lake and the citizens
02:35farmed artificial islands all around. The Mexica were not a seagoing people and they had only a
02:42vague idea that a few hundred miles across the Gulf of Mexico there were islands inhabited by
02:47the men of Spain. In the years since Christopher Columbus had come to the islands and coasts of
02:56South America, colonists from all over Spain had followed. The warring kingdoms of Spain had come
03:02together by conquest and marriage, expelled their Jews and Muslims and now Spain looked outwards
03:09seeking new lands to rule, to Christianize and to milk for profit. The deputy governor of Cuba
03:21selected the 34 year old mine owner Hernan Cortes to lead an expedition to some islands in the West,
03:28islands which turned out to be the American mainland. Like his relative Francisco Pizarro,
03:37Cortes was the son of a poor but blue-blooded Spanish family who was making his fortune in
03:42the Caribbean. Cortes was an educated man who went to Salamanca, who studied law. He was very much an
03:51adventurer. He had this sense of adventure very clearly in his mind. He wanted to discover new
03:59lands and of course he wanted to improve his wealth. He knew exactly what he wanted and why
04:06he wanted to do it. He was a good thinker in all circumstances. He could make decisions quickly. I
04:12think that he saw an opportunity. He was highly energetic, very organized, ambitious but also wise
04:21I think. And he was the man for that particular season. He did extremely well in the new world.
04:30Hernan Cortes was of medium height, thin, had a thin beard and fair skin. He read and wrote Latin
04:38and had studied law. He had led a plantation owner's protest to the deputy governor about
04:44slave allocation, which made him a good man to send away. Cortes' mission was to skirt the
04:52supposed islands at the western edge of the Caribbean Sea, claiming them for Spain and
04:57making peace with the native people. He christened his men the Holy Company. With 11 ships they would
05:04explore, seek news of past Spaniards who had disappeared and spread the word of God.
05:12There were only a few career paths open to those who did not themselves inherit land.
05:18There was the church, become a priest, you could become a sailor, go to sea,
05:25and you could go into royal service. So there was a requirement to find work for the younger sons
05:33in rather narrow fields. They had been schooled since childhood to seek glory, to seek prominence
05:41for themselves and for their families. And the opportunities for seeking glory had become very
05:48narrow. So there was tremendous pressure for young Spanish men to seek fame away from Spain.
06:00The Holy Company carried with them the military traditions of Europe,
06:04and Europe was armed with gunpowder and steel.
06:09The leaders of the expedition rode horses and wore steel European armor.
06:14They carried lances and steel swords. Most of the Europeans would fight on foot.
06:21Some carried crossbows, others carried hackbugs, an early form of musket.
06:27The expedition's artillery were lightweight lombard guns and small brass naval cannon.
06:33Early in the expedition, the Spaniards realized that they did not need steel armor to protect
06:38them from the weapons of the Mexica. For most purposes, they wore lightweight armor made from
06:44densely woven cotton. But they found that putting on the steel helmets and breastplates of Spain
06:50instilled fear in the aboriginal peoples. The Mexica were cultured to be afraid of the
06:58instilled fear in the aboriginal peoples.
07:01The Mexica were cultured and sophisticated, but they had never before seen steel.
07:10Cortes chafed under the restrictions imposed on him by the governor of Cuba.
07:15Soon after landing on the North American mainland, Cortes declared his mission accomplished,
07:20established a new colony, and under ancient Spanish law, declared that the colony was self-ruling.
07:28Cortes reached out to local rulers who feared Moctezuma, who hated paying tribute to Mexico,
07:34but were too weak to refuse.
07:37It was fortuitous that Cortes was given as a gift a slave whom he renamed Marina,
07:45who had been trained in both the Maya and the Nahuatl language groups.
07:53And the result of that was that as Marina got better and better at speaking Spanish,
08:00she became an invaluable asset to Cortes because she could speak directly,
08:07translate directly between Cortes and any of the Nahuatl-speaking people they ran into.
08:12They became the team that controlled the interface, the linguistic interface between
08:18the Spanish and the Mexica, and that meant that Cortes himself was in country,
08:25up in the mountains, very powerful.
08:28Nobody could depose him from within his own company because nobody else could talk to the locals.
08:37On a visit to one of these rulers, Cortes watched the tax collectors arrive from Tenochtitlán.
08:43These men wore bright cloaks of colored feathers,
08:46sniffed special flowers reserved to the upper classes,
08:49and had slaves to whisk the mosquitoes away.
08:52The townsfolk treated them with fear and respect.
08:57Cortes subtly manipulated the visit of the tax collectors to his advantage.
09:02He convinced the local chief to imprison the tax collectors,
09:05though the local man was quaking in his boots at the prospect.
09:09Then, at night, Cortes freed two of the Mexican tax collectors,
09:13told them that he wanted to be friends with Moctezuma, and sent them back to Tenochtitlán.
09:18When the local chief discovered two of his prisoners were gone,
09:21he was ready to put the remaining Mexicans to death.
09:25Cortes intervened, suggesting that they be imprisoned aboard one of his ships instead.
09:33Cortes had turned a coastal chief against Moctezuma,
09:37had sent a powerful message of friendship to Moctezuma,
09:40and acquired important hostages, all in the course of one night.
09:46The local chief came to Cortes and told him that he and his 100,000 men
09:51would rise up against Moctezuma if Cortes would lead them.
09:55This changed Cortes' plans.
09:57Instead of making himself prosperous by setting up a gold prospecting town
10:01on the edges of the Spanish Empire,
10:04Cortes could march inland and take over the fabulously wealthy empire of Mexico.
10:10Moctezuma was not very quick to react to the threat of the Spaniards.
10:19He was a religious man, he was very much concerned with religion, with philosophy,
10:27and in many ways he was a victim of his own philosophical and religious ideas.
10:34But he was also very keen to welcome the Spaniards.
10:39He sent messengers with all kinds of presents,
10:43which made the Spaniards even more interested in meeting him.
10:47If you view it from an Aztec point of view,
10:52everything that went on in the meetings between Moctezuma and the Spaniards
10:55made sense in the Aztec cultural system.
10:58For example, when Moctezuma first met the Spaniards,
11:01he brought gifts which the Spaniards accepted and then in turn gave him gifts.
11:06And in the cultural system of the Aztecs, that meant you were not going to wage war.
11:14And in fact, by giving Moctezuma gifts in the Aztec cultural system,
11:21that translated into Cortes recognizing Moctezuma's sovereignty.
11:29The coastal peoples began to rebel against Moctezuma's authority
11:33and Cortes began to fight.
11:36The Mexicans were frightened by Cortes' 16 horses,
11:42more frightened by the Spaniards' full beards.
11:45Victory brought Cortes allies
11:48and the coastal people thanked the Spanish man by giving them women slaves.
11:56As Cortes grew more powerful,
11:57he tried to make himself more independent from the governor of Cuba.
12:01He sent messengers to Spain telling the king
12:04that the governor was a poor manager
12:06and demanding that his settlement at Veracruz
12:08should be considered a self-ruling Spanish town.
12:13The Cuban governor's friends in Veracruz rebelled against Cortes
12:16and Cortes hanged or mutilated the rebels.
12:20To ensure that there could be no talk of returning to Cuba,
12:23Cortes had all his ships run aground at Veracruz and broken up.
12:34Cortes told his people that they would march inland to Tenochtitlán.
12:41In August of 1519,
12:43300 Spaniards of the Holy Company began the journey.
12:47Their carpenter built wagons to carry supplies and guns
12:50pulled by allies from the coast.
12:53They had about 15 horses and a pack of fighting dogs,
12:57all of which frightened the aboriginal people.
12:59The road from Veracruz to Tenochtitlán wound upwards
13:02from the hot coastal plain, climbing 2,000 meters into the mountains.
13:07As the Spaniards marched, messengers ran across the high plains
13:11and through the mountain passes to Tenochtitlán,
13:14telling Moctezuma of Cortes' approach.
13:17Cortes came as an ambassador, they said,
13:20which meant that he would be the first to be appointed governor of Cuba.
13:24The Aztecs were very familiar with war.
13:27They were great warriors.
13:29In fact, Aztec rulers had to prove themselves in the battlefield.
13:34They had to be great at warfare.
13:38They had to be the best warriors.
13:40They were very familiar with war, they were great warriors.
13:45In fact, Aztec rulers had to prove themselves in the battlefield.
13:49They had to be great at warfare before they were even elected.
13:56The Mexica's idea of honor in war was not found in a glorious death on the battlefield
14:03the way a Spanish soldier might find it.
14:07It was finding glory on the battlefield by capturing the enemy, or finding glory on the
14:14battlefield by being captured, by being taken away and sacrificed to the enemy's gods.
14:21But for ambassadors, there needed to be no preparations for war.
14:27The Mexica's must have been comforted, for it was the wrong season for war, and fighting
14:31at the wrong time would have been difficult.
14:35Montezuma knew that there was a group of powerful people coming up the road.
14:41But Montezuma had no way of dealing with this group of powerful people.
14:48If they were Maya, or if they were Mexica, or if they were Tlaxcalan, if they were any
14:54one of his neighbors, he would know how to deal with them.
14:57But at every turn, at every interaction between Cortes and Montezuma, Montezuma sees that
15:05something is completely wrong.
15:08He does not know how to deal with these people.
15:13Nothing that he does makes them bow to his will.
15:17He can't threaten them, he can't manipulate them, and as a result, every means that Montezuma
15:26uses to try to achieve his aims with respect to the Spaniards is ineffective.
15:34As the Holy Company marched, the towns along the way hosted them extravagantly.
15:39Granaries were emptied to feed the Spaniards and their coastal allies, and slaves were
15:44slaughtered in sacrifices.
15:46All along the way, chiefs aided or joined the Holy Company, eager to throw off Mexican
15:51domination.
15:53At Tlaxcalan, a highland kingdom proud of its independence from the Mexicans, the Holy
15:58Company first had to fight.
16:03When they saw horses, Tlaxcalan scouts fled, drawing Cortes and a few other Spanish cavalrymen
16:09after them.
16:13When Cortes caught up, the Tlaxcalans turned to fight, killing two horses with their razor-sharp
16:19but brittle swords.
16:21The rest of the Tlaxcalan army was waiting, thousands drawn up in battle order, their
16:26faces horribly painted.
16:29The Mexica did not want to kill their enemies on the battlefield.
16:33They wanted their enemies to surrender, and they wanted their enemies to be marched up
16:39to the top of a pyramid and be sacrificed to their gods.
16:44So they did not use weapons designed to kill.
16:49The Mexica used weapons designed to disable.
16:53The Mexica used clubs.
16:55You hit the guy over the head, you break the guy's knee, he can't run away, and you sacrifice him.
17:01The Mexica, therefore, did not have armor designed to protect against killing weapons.
17:09If somebody is going to threaten you with a club, well, it's no point having chain mail.
17:17You just have a big pillow, and he hits you with the club, it hits the pillow, it goes
17:21woomp, and you live to fight another day.
17:24The weaponry of the Aztecs, again, was geared not to kill on the battlefield, but to draw
17:30blood, because warriors were esteemed if they gave blood.
17:35So even the arrow points, which they used, were small, were not designed to kill, they
17:42were designed to make people bleed.
17:45So Mexican armor and weapons were wholly unsuited to going up against the Spanish.
17:53The Tlaxcalan soldiers attacked in lines, armed only with obsidian-bladed swords intended
17:59to wound.
18:00The Spanish, armed and armored with steel, supported by light artillery, handguns, and
18:06crossbows, killed many in the first wave before the rest of the Tlaxcalans came to grips.
18:11This style of warfare frightened the Tlaxcalans.
18:15Dying on the battlefield was alien to their way of thinking.
18:18They wanted to capture or be captured, with blood spilling on sacrificial altars in honor
18:24of their gods.
18:25For the locals, this was pointless slaughter, and they ran away.
18:31For days, Cortes fought and negotiated with the Tlaxcalans and their allies.
18:36His Spanish armor had to stop arrows, spears thrown by atlatl launchers, and some were
18:41killed and wounded.
18:43Cortes punished the Tlaxcalans by conducting a pogrom against their priests and civilian
18:49population, burning and mutilating.
18:52Astonishingly, the Tlaxcalans were cowed into supporting the Spanish.
18:58Tlaxcala joined forces with Cortes, allowing his coastal allies to return home.
19:06As the Holy Company and their Tlaxcalan allies moved closer to Tenochtitlan, they were again
19:12met by ambassadors and magicians from Moctezuma, who told Cortes to come no closer.
19:20As these emissaries walked back to the imperial city, they had visions of destruction and
19:25the burning of the city.
19:27The Mexican religion was built on visions.
19:32And like many religions elsewhere, visions were assisted by eating hallucinogenic mushrooms.
19:38And when Moctezuma is trying to deal with Cortes, and he makes apparently irrational
19:46decisions, there is a clash of cultures at work, there is a clash of paradigms at work.
19:53But just as Cortes or his party would use alcohol as part of their daily lives, Moctezuma
20:02and his advisers were using hallucinogenic mushrooms as part of their daily lives, part
20:07of understanding the world around them, and part of their way of worshipping their gods.
20:16Moctezuma's advisers told him to fight, to attack the allied army of the Spanish and
20:21Tlaxcalans before they got to the city.
20:24For a time, Moctezuma again considered going to war, but he soon resumed his old ideas.
20:30Welcome them, give them gifts, make them his friends.
20:38In early November, the Holy Company reached the shores of the great lake Texcoco.
20:43Tenochtitlan was on an island in the lake, and on their approach, the Spanish were able
20:47to see the city for the first time.
20:53The local chiefs welcomed Cortes as a liberator from Mexican taxation, and they fed his soldiers
21:00and allies.
21:03Tenochtitlan was connected to the mainland by causeways, and on the 8th of November 1519,
21:10Cortes took the company on the narrow way.
21:14The dogs came first, huge brindled mastiffs which frightened the aboriginal people with
21:19their gaping mouths and slavering jaws.
21:22In front rode four horsemen in full metal armour, followed by the company's banner-bearer
21:27who twirled and flourished the silken colours as he marched.
21:31The rest of the Spanish followed, with Cortes riding in state as the climax of the parade.
21:37Behind Cortes marched his aboriginal allies, armed and painted for war.
21:42The Holy Company was a frightening sight to the Mexicans, who had never seen metal armour,
21:47horses or even the wheeled carts which brought up the rear.
21:53The city which they approached was the largest most of them had ever seen.
21:58Paris, London, Naples and Constantinople were the only European cities which approached
22:03the scale of the imperial city of the Mexica.
22:07Moctezuma welcomed Cortes riding in a feathered litter, with Mexican noblemen sweeping the
22:12ground before him.
22:14Cortes dismounted and shook hands with the Mexican emperor.
22:17The Spanish celebrated their arrival by firing their muskets and cannon, amazing and intimidating
22:23the citizens.
22:26Moctezuma conducted his guests to an important palace in the city and made a flowery speech
22:31of welcome.
22:33Cortes took this polite speech literally as a formal submission to Spanish authority and
22:38from that point on assumed that he was now the ruler of the Mexican Empire on behalf
22:43of the King of Spain.
22:45The Spanish spent several days as tourists in Tenochtitlan.
22:50They were lavished with gold, cloth and slave women and Cortes was taken to the top of the
22:55city's highest pyramid to see the center of the Mexican Empire spread out before him.
23:01Moctezuma offered Cortes his own daughter and more women for the Spanish officers.
23:06Moctezuma was trying very hard to buy off the Spanish, to get them to go away.
23:13Cortes quietly and reasonably told Moctezuma to come back to the palace where the Holy
23:17Company was quartered and to come quietly.
23:21Moctezuma argued, trying for hours to talk them out of it, but the Spanish captains put
23:26it to him plainly.
23:27Come with them or they would kill him on the spot.
23:31Moctezuma offered his children instead, but Cortes refused.
23:35Moctezuma must come away as a prisoner.
23:39Cortes had succeeded.
23:41Moctezuma was his hostage.
23:44Moctezuma could still rule his empire, but Hernan Cortes, son of a poor foot soldier
23:50from the province of Extremadura, would rule the emperor.
23:56Moctezuma didn't know what to do.
23:58He was demoralized.
23:59He had been humiliated by the Spaniards.
24:03He was more or less worshipped as God in his lifetime.
24:10The fact that he had been captured, that he had been imprisoned, made him even more vulnerable.
24:20When Moctezuma first met Cortes, he was still operating on his own cultural system.
24:24Cortes had given him gifts, so he thought things were going to proceed a certain way.
24:28It didn't happen.
24:29Then he was taken captive.
24:31Cortes actually touched Moctezuma, which you don't do with an Aztec ruler, so already,
24:37in a sense, his sacred space had been violated.
24:40So I would think that he was probably crushed.
24:45Everything he knew, his whole system, had disintegrated before his eyes.
24:49And you can get through those situations when you can see an out, when you have a goal,
24:54and you say, but I'm going to do this.
24:57What was he going to do?
24:59Because the rules were gone.
25:04The Spanish consolidated their hold over the Mexican Empire.
25:08Cortes' emissaries travelled with Moctezuma's authority and were looked after by local chiefs.
25:14The empire settled into an uneasy quiet under Spanish domination.
25:19And when a group of Mexican princes plotted to get rid of the invaders, Cortes had them
25:23imprisoned.
25:25The Mexican effigies were removed from the great pyramid of Tenochtitlan, and a Christian
25:30church was established instead.
25:36Cortes had started to refer to himself as Captain General and Chief Justice of New Spain,
25:42the first modern European name for the landmass that would become America.
25:48Cortes had shrugged off the authority of the Deputy Governor of Cuba.
25:52The governor's agents in Spain fought at court with the agents of Cortes to little effect.
25:58The gifts of the king of Mexican gold had spoken louder than the governor's legalistic
26:03arguments.
26:05The governor resorted to force.
26:07On the 5th of March, 1520, Panfeo de Narváez set sail from Cuba with 900 men to overthrow
26:14Hernán Cortes.
26:18Cortes had to take most of his force down from Tenochtitlan to fight Narváez on the
26:22coast.
26:23He defeated the new force, recruited most of Narváez's men into the Holy Company, and
26:28began the trek back to Tenochtitlan.
26:32Meanwhile, in the imperial city, the Mexicans stopped feeding the Spanish garrison.
26:39The preparations for an important festival were underway, with steaks and pans ready
26:44for the human sacrifices.
26:46When the Spaniards asked whom the preparations were for, their Tlaxcalan allies said they
26:51were to cook and to eat the Spaniards with garlic.
26:57The Mexican festival worked its way to its climax.
27:00The figures of the gods, the human sacrifices, the feathered and furred costumes were all
27:06prepared.
27:07The rosewood drums beat and hundreds of noblemen danced.
27:11The formal course of the ritual had to be followed exactly, each dance and each sacrifice
27:16sublime in its perfection.
27:19The songs and dances followed one another in sacred order as the Spaniards and the Tlaxcalans
27:24moved to block the exits from the sacred precinct.
27:28As the Mexicans around them awaited the climactic sacrifice, the Holy Company awaited a signal.
27:37When the exits from the temple precincts were blocked, Cortés' deputy Alvarado gave the
27:41signal.
27:42Kill, he cried, putting his plan into action.
27:46Sixty of the Spaniards had been detailed to murder the dancing Mexican noblemen, while
27:51sixty would guard Moctezuma and slaughter his attendants, the dancers, the priests,
27:57then the spectators.
27:59All the Mexicans were unarmed and they made easy prey for steel Spanish swords and razor
28:04sharp obsidian blades.
28:08The Spaniards moved out of the temple precincts as the spectators fled for their lives.
28:13When they returned to their palace, they saw that most of Moctezuma's attendants had
28:17been killed and the Emperor was in chains with the few surviving princes.
28:24Mexican mobs surrounded the palace, threatening to burn down the doors.
28:28Spanish boats on the lake were burned to the waterline, cutting off the Holy Company's
28:31escape.
28:32The Mexicans closed off the bridges around the palace, cutting it off, and the citizens
28:36sat down and began mourning their dead.
28:40The Aztecs wasted time, they wasted days, that were very important at this time of warfare
28:49and conflict, giving their people a decent burial, which normally were very elaborate
28:56and normally took several days.
29:00And then, for days after that, a sullen silence descends on Tenochtitlan, and the Spanish
29:08soldiers and their Tlaxcalan allies find this very disturbing.
29:15And there are visions seen, and the visions could be part of a deliberate campaign of
29:20psychological warfare, because there are demonic apparitions seen of Mexican gods and Mexican
29:30demons by the Spanish.
29:34Cortes marched back into Tenochtitlan with the Holy Company and their Tlaxcalan allies.
29:39The city was silent.
29:41The thousands of inhabitants were indoors, mourning and planning.
29:46Cortes marched to his palace in the foreboding quiet.
29:51Cortes could not feed his soldiers without the city's food markets, and he sent Moctezuma's
29:56brother, Quitlahuac, to demand in the Emperor's name that the markets open.
30:03Moctezuma's brother, Quitlahuac, walked from Cortes' palace, disappeared into the city,
30:07and immediately began to organize the Mexica against the Holy Company.
30:12In the last days of June 1520, Cortes' patrols began to run into ambushes.
30:18The drawbridges across the city's canals began to rise.
30:22The Holy Company and the Tlaxcalans were trapped.
30:28The Holy Company began to fight its way out of their palace against hordes of organized
30:32Mexicans.
30:33For days they fought in the streets of Tenochtitlan, taking casualties when they left their palace
30:39and even when they stayed inside, as a hail of stones from nearby roofs kept them out
30:43of the courtyards.
30:45Fresh water began to run low, and the brackish water of Lake Texcoco had become a barrier
30:51instead of a resource.
30:54Today, fighting in Tenochtitlan, the Spanish are conducting operations in a built-up area.
31:00They're fighting in narrow streets.
31:02They're fighting house to house.
31:05So in a field, being up high on a horse might be an advantage.
31:11But in a street, when your enemy is higher than you on the roof of a building and able
31:17to throw things down at you, then it is no longer an advantage.
31:21The Spanish try to use European military technology to their advantage, but their technological
31:28advantages do them no good in the confined spaces of Tenochtitlan, and it becomes a much
31:35more even battle.
31:37And an even battle is exactly the kind of battle the Spanish can't win.
31:43In the street fighting, the Spanish soldiers saw that one of the Mexican leaders was dressed
31:47in a specially gorgeous plumage and was treated reverently by the other leaders.
31:52Cortes began to realize that the Mexica had chosen a new emperor.
31:57He concluded that Cuitlahuac had convinced the citizens that Moctezuma was dead or disabled.
32:02So he arranged to display Moctezuma on the roof of the palace.
32:08There was a hush at the sight of Moctezuma on the palace roof.
32:13Then the Mexican leaders began to hurl abuse.
32:17Just even before Moctezuma was able to get a word out, stones, arrows and darts began
32:21to fly at him.
32:23Moctezuma, mortally wounded, was taken down inside the palace.
32:27He died the next morning, and Cortes butchered all his remaining princely prisoners.
32:36It was time to leave.
32:39Cortes reluctantly ordered a plan to escape the city, and the Spanish began to load up
32:43pack animals and stuff their armor with gold.
32:49By night, they set out with a portable bridge and spare timber to cross the canals.
32:55With the horses' hooves muffled, they tried to leave undetected.
32:59They crossed one canal, then another, then two more.
33:04The way seemed open to the safety of the lake shore, where their horses and guns would be
33:08an advantage, when a woman drawing water saw them moving.
33:12She cried out a warning, and soon the war drums were sounding from the city's highest
33:17pyramids.
33:19The Spanish ran for the shore, while the Mexicans scrambled into their canoes and began attacking.
33:25The old Mexican ways of war were set aside, and instead of striking to wound, they struck
33:30to kill.
33:31Two canals stood between the Spaniards and safety.
33:36The first few Spaniards made it across, and Cortes turned to help the Holy Company fight
33:40its way across the causeway.
33:45One canal was filled with Spanish and Tlaxcalan dead.
33:49Much of the Holy Company and their Tlaxcalan allies were left behind, to be taken prisoner
33:54by the Mexica, and made ready to be sacrificed to the gods, and eaten by their captors.
34:02That sad night, La Noche Triste, was the first great defeat for Europeans in the New World.
34:11Cortes made his way towards his allies' stronghold of Tlaxcala, with 400 men and 30 horses, almost
34:18all wounded.
34:19But as they straggled from village to abandoned village, the new emperor, Quitlacoq, gathered
34:25his army and put it into the hands of his military deputy.
34:29At the village of Otumba, about half way from Lake Texcoco to the safety of Tlaxcala,
34:34a large force of Mexica attacked the Holy Company.
34:39Returning to their traditional way of war after the single episode of night fighting,
34:43the Mexica swung their clubs and obsidian-bladed swords to wound and capture, not to kill.
34:50For hours the surrounded Spaniards and Tlaxcalans fought for their lives in a grim battle of
34:55attrition.
34:58Cortes saw the new emperor's military deputy and his fellow officers in their bright feather
35:03cloaks, and he ordered a cavalry charge.
35:06Five Spanish horsemen rode through the enemy soldiers and knocked the Mexican commander
35:11to the ground, killing him with lances.
35:14The Mexican attack disintegrated, and in the face of decisive cavalry action, the Mexicans
35:19retreated.
35:21After ten days' retreat, the Holy Company came to the kingdom of Tlaxcala, where they
35:26were safe.
35:29People often talk of what a small army the Spaniards had and how successful they were
35:36in conquering a huge territory.
35:40But what people often ignore is the fact that the conquest was not made by the Spaniards.
35:46The conquest was made by the Mexicans.
35:50The Mexicans actually helped the Spaniards, the Tlaxcaltecans, and many other groups join
35:58Cortes' forces and help him destroy the Aztec Empire.
36:04Cortes sees a tremendous threat.
36:08He has been defeated.
36:10He has been shown to be weak.
36:12He has been shown to be defeatable.
36:15So the first thing that Cortes does is he goes to the Tlaxcalans and he says, who would
36:20you like to destroy?
36:22And the Tlaxcalans say, well, we've always hated the people in Tepeyacá.
36:26And Cortes says, all right, well, let's go destroy them.
36:30And after the defeat in Tenochtitlan, Cortes ensures that he has a very bloody victory
36:39in Tepeyacá.
36:40And they march up to Tepeyacá and they absolutely slaughter the locals.
36:45So what Cortes does is, out of the ashes of defeat, he arranges a victory and Cortes rebuilds
36:54the Holy Company as a fighting entity.
36:58Cortes and the Tlaxcalans set about pacifying the land between the Mexica and the sea, defeating
37:03the town's men in battle and branding the faces of the women and children as they were
37:08sold into slavery.
37:10Spanish settlements were planted in the conquered towns and the territory controlled by the
37:15Spanish-Tlaxcalan alliance grew, cutting Tenochtitlan off from the coastal peoples and from the
37:21sea.
37:23Cortes' people began to build brigantes, small sailing ships which would enable the
37:27Spaniards to sail across Lake Texcoco and attack the Mexicans from the water.
37:33But by October of 1520, Cortes had a new ally – disease.
37:41The great smallpox plague, which depopulated North America and the Caribbean, started on
37:46the island of Hispaniola in 1518 and slowly spread to Cuba.
37:51Narvaez, the Spanish officer sent to reign Cortes in, probably brought the disease to
37:55the Mayan peoples in the peninsula of Yucatán, and one of Narvaez's porters brought the
38:00disease to Cortes' allies on the Mexican coast.
38:05Smallpox spread through the aboriginal communities rapidly, killing half the population wherever
38:10it struck.
38:11Village chiefs pulled houses down on the heads of sick families, trying to contain the contagion,
38:17but instead killing the survivors of the disease.
38:21When the women who processed and cooked food were gone, the men died of hunger.
38:26In their highly organised society, men did not have the skills to mill flour and bake
38:31bread.
38:33The Spaniards brought smallpox as early as 1519 and of course the natives having no immunities
38:42to cope with the disease were decimated in no time.
38:48There were about 22 million inhabitants in ancient Mexico at the time, and it's calculated
38:56that only 80 years later, the population was reduced by about 90%.
39:02It wasn't just smallpox, there were flus, and it wasn't just what the humans brought,
39:06of course, it was the animals as well.
39:09One of the first things that happened was that cattle and sheep polluted streams, and
39:14that had not existed in the New World before, so there were micro-environments in which
39:19bacteria and other microbes could just flourish, so it was a disaster waiting to happen.
39:26Corn stood unharvested, and even the ritual human sacrifices began to grind to a halt.
39:32The Mexican empire was gravely weakened.
39:35Cortez, on the other hand, grew stronger.
39:38Spanish reinforcements, intended for naviz or bent on new conquests, joined the Holy
39:43Company, bringing new guns and much-needed supplies.
39:48Mexican gold went with men to Hispaniola and Jamaica to buy fresh horses and supplies of
39:54ammunition.
39:55Both Cortez and the new emperor, Cuauhtemoc, prepared for war.
39:59Cuauhtemoc offered sacrifices and prepared to muster his army for the only kind of war
40:04his people understood, a huge battle on a field where many prisoners would be taken
40:09for sacrifice to the Mexican gods.
40:12Cortez readied himself for a long campaign of siege.
40:18Cortez knows that water is a problematical issue if you live on Lake Tenochtitlan, because
40:24Lake Tenochtitlan is not fresh water, it is brackish water, and they had to rely for water
40:31in Tenochtitlan on wells on the lake shore, with the water brought by conduit into the
40:38city.
40:39Cortez knew that if he could take the seaward side, the lakeward side of Tenochtitlan with
40:47his brigantines, and on the landward side, if he could cut the water supply, that he
40:52would fight against the Mexica from a position of advantage.
40:58On the last day of December 1520, the reinforced Holy Company came to Texcoco.
41:04The rulers of the town, eager to rid themselves of imperial domination, welcomed Cortez and
41:09offered assistance, but many of the townsfolk took to their canoes and paddled off to warn
41:14the Mexica.
41:16Cortez took his revenge by pillaging the city and enslaving the women and children.
41:22The towns of the lake shore began to offer their submission to Cortez.
41:27At Ixtapalapa, the Holy Company massacred the town's army and expelled its citizens.
41:33At Chalco, the citizens' own soldiers drove off a Mexican army.
41:37Bit by bit, the emperor was losing control of his own lake.
41:42Tribute was no longer coming in from the empire and supplies began to run short in Tenochtitlan.
41:50Cortez divided his army into four divisions.
41:53Three divisions would fight on land.
41:55Each would hold one of the causeways which connected Tenochtitlan to the mainland.
42:00One division would cross the lake from Texcoco in canoes and twelve brigantines, small sailing
42:06ships.
42:08Each brigantine was about sixty-five feet long and each could carry between twenty-five
42:13and thirty men, as well as a cannon.
42:16These brigantines would destroy the Mexicans' canoes, further cutting them off from the
42:20mainland.
42:21One causeway would be left open as a tempting escape route.
42:28At the end of May 1521, the divisions of the Holy Company began to march and on the first
42:34of June, the fleet of brigantines set sail from Texcoco.
42:39Thousands of canoes paddled out from Tenochtitlan to face thousands of canoes and twelve small
42:44ships.
42:45The guns, crossbows and muskets of the Spaniards crashed through the Mexican fleet and the
42:51large number of canoes filled with Cortez's lakeshore allies pushed them back into the
42:56protected canals of Tenochtitlan.
42:59Once the Emperor Cuauhtemoc saw Cortez's deployment, he split his own army into four
43:04divisions.
43:05Three of them met Cortez's landward divisions and one stood ready to defend the city from
43:10Cortez's brigantines.
43:11For weeks, the fighting at the causeways ground on and the last causeway was blocked.
43:18The Mexica were cut off in their grand city.
43:22The situation that existed in the final siege of Tenochtitlan was very different and surely
43:28the Aztecs who were fighting must have realized that.
43:31They must have seen that it signaled the end of their empire.
43:36Once you go to another country and you say we are going to destroy your empire, we are
43:41going to destroy your way of life, we are going to take your religion away from you,
43:45they have no choice but to fight back with everything they've got.
43:50Cortez has to fight for every stone in that town.
43:54He has got to destroy Tenochtitlan in order to take it.
44:00Cortez could not get the Mexica out, so he cut off the remaining causeway and ordered
44:04his brigantines to begin torching houses in Tenochtitlan.
44:09Then on the 10th of June, Cortez began to fight his way into the depleted city.
44:14But the narrow streets were vulnerable to attack from the rooftops.
44:18So as Cortez pulled back, he torched more houses.
44:23Five days later, Cortez forced his way into the city centre again and again he burnt what
44:28he could before retreating.
44:32The Mexica consolidated their defence in the suburb of Tlatelolco.
44:36Here they were more successful and on June the 30th, their counter-attacks were able
44:40to overwhelm the Spaniards and their allies briefly, capturing prisoners.
44:45The Mexicans got hold of the Spaniards, sacrificed them, they practiced decapitation, they put
44:52the skull in the skull-rack, they sacrificed both Spaniards and the horses of the Spaniards
45:01and the Spaniards were shocked and terrified to recognise the faces of some of their soldiers.
45:11This was the last celebration of the Mexica.
45:14Short of food, short of water, they never again managed to muster a major counter-attack.
45:19As Cortez burnt their city around them, the Mexica stopped breaking up the causeways.
45:24They were reduced to drinking the brackish lake water and gnawing on mud bricks to get
45:29at the straw inside.
45:31On the 13th of August, 1521, it ended.
45:35The Mexicans' will to resist collapsed and they began surrendering.
45:40The Emperor, like Moctezuma before him, was permitted to rule under Cortez's control.
45:46When the Spaniards did not find the heaps of gold they expected, Emperor Cuauhtemoc
45:51was tortured by fire and crippled for life.
45:54Later, Cortez hanged the Emperor for plotting a return to power.
46:00Cortez ruled like a king, for a while sending the required one-fifth of the wealth to Spain
46:05and keeping a fifth of the remainder for himself.
46:08But then the King of Spain extended his hand to New Spain.
46:12He confirmed Cortez as governor and captain general of New Spain, but appointed a treasurer,
46:18a factor, a bookkeeper and an inspector.
46:21All of them, Cortez included, would be on modest fixed salaries.
46:26This very promising New Spain that Cortez constructs, it falls apart, everybody dies
46:33because everybody gets smallpox and the city of Tenochtitlan is destroyed by an earthquake
46:38and next to nothing remains of the old Mexica empire.
46:44The consequence of the conquest, the Mexicans became drunkards, they were given to alcoholism,
46:51there were diseases, there was smallpox, typhus, no real prospect of a better life.
46:59They were equally slaves under the rulership of the Spaniards.
47:04So that, together with the overthrow of their cities, made them utterly depressed.
47:11Cortez returned to Spain in 1528.
47:14Out of favour at court, he retired to Seville and died there, aged 62, in 1547.
47:23Cortez sought to take over the majesty of Tenochtitlan and make it his own.
47:28The son of a poor Spanish family wanted to carve out a golden kingdom for himself in
47:33the new world.
47:34He wanted to redeem the Mexicans and preserve a Christian version of their culture under
47:39his domination.
47:42Cortez could not know that he and his conquistadores were the leading edge of a tidal wave that
47:47would sweep up from the sea to drown forever the ancient civilizations of the new world.